Team-Building Activities For Employees

If a business is to thrive in the modern world, there must be a company culture of teamwork and cooperation.

Mutual trust fosters an environment of creative thinking and will encourage team members to work to the fullest of their abilities.

The best team-building activities can develop these skills and boost employee engagement. However, most team-building activities inspire embarrassment rather than enthusiasm.

This reaction does not need to be the case. The right kinds of fun team-building activities exist and can be incredibly beneficial for the growth of your business.

So, if you want to know about the best team-building activities for your team members, continue reading.

But before we begin, it is worth explaining further why team-building activities are so important.

Why Are Team-Building Activities So Important?

Team building is more than offering an alternative to after-work drinks and awkward office trivia games.

Team-building activities provide companies and employees with plenty of other benefits. Here are just a few.

Company Culture

Team members need to know that they are valued. Employee engagement is one of the building blocks of a successful business. Happy and engaged team members come from a strong company culture of support and development, and they show the world what a brilliant company it is.

A team-building event animates the idea that both the group’s and the company’s success is a priority. By investing in team-building activities, you are reinforcing the message that your organization values its employees and wants to create an environment where everyone can thrive.

To gain a deeper understanding of team culture and its importance in fostering employee engagement and success, you can explore our comprehensive resource: What is Team Culture and Why is it Important?

Discover how team-building activities can contribute to building a strong company culture, fostering employee engagement, and ultimately driving the success of your organization.

Team Bonding

Team-building activities are the building blocks of group camaraderie and trust – critical aspects of a successful team. They are the best tool to improve team bonding.

A successful team-building event can go a long way to instilling these qualities in small teams as well as large groups.

Improve Communication Skills

Team-building is one of the best ways to improve the communication skills of your team members.

The challenges that team-building activities provide are also designed to inspire and develop team members’ creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

Team Leaders

Team-building activities do more than develop group skills and employee engagement. They can also highlight leadership skills in some team members.

Hiring from within is cheaper and easier than hiring externally. A team-building event might help you spot a team leader, helping your business in the long run.

If you want to improve any of these aspects of your business, read on – here are some of the best and most fun team-building activities.

Count To Twenty

This game is a simple team-building exercise, easy to do, and great for team bonding.

This simple game is also a great ice-breaker before a long team-building event. Make sure you set a time limit because this could go on all day!

How To Play

All the team members sit in a circle, and the goal is simple: count from one to twenty.

However, if two other team members say a number simultaneously, the count resets.

The game develops team bonding by making team members aware of the group dynamic while encouraging the entire team to work together to achieve a common goal.

You could pair this warm-up exercise with a series of similarly short, fun games – online fun games offer a series of quickfire games that will get the team relaxed and engaged while keeping them productive.

A Treasure Hunt

A treasure hunt is a fun team-building activity for the entire group and a great team-building exercise for employee engagement.

A team treasure hunt is one of the best team-building games for team-building, creative thinking, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

How To Play

A treasure hunt could see new employees get to know the landscape by finding out the answers to questions like “When was the company founded?” or “Who was in our first team?”.

Alternatively, you could put team members into small groups and have them find clues and solve problems to achieve a common goal in a virtual treasure hunt. Having the teams compete might even inspire some healthy competition!

There are lots of creative ideas for where you could take this team-building game. You could even decide to go island-hopping in Thailand on an exciting adventure treasure hunt.

However you choose to do it, a team treasure hunt has the potential to:

Improve communication skills
Develop problem-solving skills
Involve the entire group
Inspire healthy competition
Develop creative thinking in team members

A treasure hunt is a brilliant team-building activity for any team-building event and a fantastic advert for your company culture.

Escape Room

How better to get your entire team bonding and working together than by locking them in a room?

In this team-building activity, team members must use their creative thinking and problem-solving skills to find clues and solve puzzles that will allow them to escape within the time limit.

This game is one of the best team-building exercises for inspiring communication and collaboration skills, problem-solving, and creative thinking.

You could even divide your team members into smaller teams and have them compete against each other.

And offering to reward the winning team (or punish the opposing team) is another way to motivate your team members!

The escape room can also help develop:

Leadership skills
Critical thinking
Organisational skills

Not to mention the positive memories all the teams create along the way! Not only this, but the activity is well-suited to virtual teams and in-person ones.

There are many brilliant places to do an escape room with your team. For example, why not try an escape room in the metropolis of Bangkok? Or on the white, sandy beaches of Hua Hin?

Board Games

Board games bring people together. Everyone loves a board game.

Playing board games is one of the best team-building activities for team bonding and a fun way to develop critical business skills.

Choose team games that will require collaboration skills or games that will inspire problem-solving and critical thinking in your team members.

It doesn’t have to be a particular game – some ideas are:

Cluedo Mystery
Jenga
Monopoly
Poker and casino games

It might feel silly getting a classic game out in the middle of the conference room, especially a gigantic monopoly board, but this act will immediately loosen everyone up and inspire creative thinking and team bonding.

These team-building games are excellent tools for building a tightly connected team.

They are ideal for smaller teams or large teams divided into small groups and are a great example of the best type of open, relaxed company culture.

Solve Puzzles

This idea is one of the simplest team-building games.

It can be a literal puzzle like a jigsaw or a series of education puzzles that requires team members to work together and brainstorm out loud to complete.

You could even split them into multiple teams of small groups and have them compete against each other – maybe even set a time limit or promise rewards for the winning team.

Whatever it is, a fun game is one of the best team-building exercises for developing:

Creative thinking
Communication skills
Problem-solving
Critical thinking

At the end of the session, reflect on the experience. For example, you might ask the team what worked and did not, what strategies they used, and what they could do better.

Puzzles are one of the simplest team-building activities and a fun way to learn about your team. They are great for team morale and a must for team-building events. You might even learn a lot about a team member or uncover a potential team leader.

Plus, they are one of the many excellent virtual team-building activities for the modern office.

An Improv Class

Improv classes are a great team-building activity for improving the art of creative thinking and can teach many valuable things for the workplace, including:

Communication skills
Problem-solving
Critical thinking

This team-building activity also teaches team members how to overcome new and unseen challenges with confidence and innovation.

Improv, like the treasure hunt and escape room, is also one of the best team-building activities for getting team members out of their comfort zone and meeting new people. It also encourages your team members to take risks and think independently.

And as a team-building activity, it is a brilliant example of modern, relaxed company culture for your team members.

Host A Trivia Session

Nothing beats a good quiz or session of office trivia. There are many ways that you can approach this excellent team-building activity.

You could help your team members get to know each other better, learn about inside jokes, and get to know the company better by hosting an ‘office trivia’ session. This idea is also one of several great ways to break the ice.

You could also take your team to a quiz and have them compete against each other in small groups – or as one large group and put the other teams to shame!

There are also great options for virtual quizzing that offer more scope for fun than a simple quiz.

A game show-style quiz is a great way to engage your team and get them using their brains while blowing off some steam from the comfort of their homes.

Trivia is also a great example of good company culture and is brilliant for:

Team-building
Creative thinking
Critical thinking
Problem-solving

The quiz is up there with the best team-building activities for inspiring both development and fun at exactly the same time!

Community Service And Volunteering

Team-building events and team-building activities do not always have to be just about your business.

That is not to say that these team-building activities can’t be fun team-building activities – they can be some of the best!

Volunteering is a fun way to give something back while bonding as a team. Some potential team-building activities include:

Volunteering at an elementary school: School teaching is a brilliant way for your team to help underprivileged students and a brilliant way to achieve corporate social responsibility.
Cleaning up the environment: A beach clean-up will help your team realise how much needs to be done to be socially and environmentally responsible. For example, why wouldn’t you want to help keep the beautiful beaches of Thailand clean? Phuket and Samui are some of the most idyllic spots in the world – let’s help keep it that way!
Recycling: A recycling project is an excellent way to get your team working together and with local municipalities to make a difference in the world. This activity includes educating locals about avoiding single-use plastic and other sustainable practices.

These activities will inspire team building and employee engagement in your team. And they are great for developing a united and caring company culture grounded in the community and mutual respect.